Servicios de Abastecimiento y Saneamiento - La Tribuna del Agua

WATER SUPPLY AND SANITATION SERVICES
• Using water as a political weapon is in detri-
ment to the people.
• Ideological aspirations should not risk the pri-
mary objectives of “user satisfaction” or “effecti-
veness and service efficiency”.
• Policies related to water of various different
governments are not ambitious enough as regards
the development of access to water and sanitation.
In water government, many water and sani-
tation public authorities responsible for services
are local and this trend is increasing due to conti-
nuing decentralisation. These bodies often do not
have the human, technical or financial resources
necessary to cope with this responsibility – which
has its repercussions in the quality and viability of
the services being provided.
The overlap in responsibilities and the lack of
a clear definition of roles and of all the parties
involved in the water management make imple-
menting necessary measures to face the emer-
ging challenges more complicated, leading to the
appearance of conflicts over the use and redistri-
bution of water. The existence of well-equipped
regulatory bodies to guarantee technical criteria
and which function independently should facili-
tate the growth of quality services.
Equally – and more often – it is necessary to
have public participation (consumers’ associations,
professionals and civil society in general) to know
the preferences and perceptions of provided servi-
ces of consumers to ensure good management and
good water. Governance thus far, there has been
no improvements in information and transparency
and in the implementation of mechanisms to in-
corporate public participation in urban water ser-
vices planning and provision. However, it is clear
how easily water matters are used demagogically.
Therefore, when promoting public participation it
is necessary to carefully design the relevant me-
chanisms to avoid public opinion manipulation
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POSITIONING DOCUMENT
In most countries there is no basic legislation
on such matter; in others where it does exist, it is
necessary to adapt it to specific socio-economic
and technical context that is the reference point
for of water services provision.
Regulatory, institutional or technical
capacity shortages or difficulties in governing
water make it very complicated
to efficiently or effectively satisfy citizens’
expectations. Despite this, there are many
and varied good examples of efficient service
provision.
Financing for water services
The principle of “water pays for water” must
prevail. Full cost recovery derived from access to
water and the environmental deterioration must
be funded by users. Nowadays, we can find many
cases where the principle of cost recovery is ig-
nored or where water serves as a crossover finan-
cial source for other services or different activities.
This runs contrary to future insurance through in-
vestments and produces capital loss – definitively
compromising the quality of the services provided.
Likewise, it is not possible to demand payment
for services that the user can not pay, particu-
larly when these are services without which life
is impossible. Tariff models do not adapt to the
socio-economic reality of many countries and,
while free water is a serious mistake, the con-
cept of solidarity must exist among users with
partial or complete subsidies for those most in
need. Solutions successfully implemented in some
countries are not applicable in others with dis-
tinct cultural or economic contexts. However, in
any case, it is advisable not to forget that one
topic is water tariff policy and another is wealth
redistribution policy. Just as it is reasonable not to
use water tariffs to finance other services or acti-
vities, so it is unreasonable to redistribute wealth